


story of isaac

by Contra



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Character Study, Other, Sins of the Father, idk what that tag was originally referencing but fuck it it fits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 09:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contra/pseuds/Contra
Summary: as a boy, asriel read the story of isaac and thinks - i would have refused.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	story of isaac

**Author's Note:**

> still inspired by [daniel kahn's cover of leonard cohen's story of isaac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOS3iEiXwIc).
> 
> which you should listen to.
> 
> roger dies in this.

you're a thirteen year old boy at eton the first time you read the story of isaac and abraham, walking up the mountain, the only question you ask is-

_why_?

not out loud of course. you're sitting behind the scratched wooden school desk while your biblical history teacher drones on in a monotone voice. your gaze drifts out of the window at the carefully maintained lawn and you can picture them clearly against the dusty holy land sky.

"_God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering"-_

\- and the moment abraham realized, as he watched his son's small white daemon take form.

you can imagine how the boy climbed on the pyre peacefully. and abraham's hand, raising the knife.

_why did God do that?_

this is the first time in your life you ask yourself that question. it's very far from the last.

years later, you're in the north - the empty ragged north, barren, _godforsaken_ \- or so you think, until your daughter steps through the door of the research station. God has a sense of irony.

lyra- 

_not lyra!_ you think. the blueprints for the machine you built still lie in front of you. the death-killing, child-eating light machine.

_get out_, you scream. _turn around, get out, go! I did not send for you._

something you have always known about yourself: you would not have been able to do what isaac did. you would not have been able to do what abraham did. you would not be able to even come close.

your faith in that falters only for the fraction of a second as you see her standing there clutching the alethiometer.

but that's the truth that's the truth that's the truth - if she would have come alone, you would not have done it-

(God has a sense of irony, though)

but she brought you the servant boy. 

_it was a test_, the teacher said, he wants you to memorize it for some exam next week. _God was testing abraham's faith and devotion_.

you understand the truth, though - he did it because he could.

  
you are nothing like abraham. you are made in God's image. a test - and you're ambitious, _because he could,_ it beats and thrums in your chest like a second heart. 

(you would not be able to do what God did, you are supposed to believe)

(but maybe it was not God testing abraham. maybe it was the other way around.)

would he have truly gone through with it? or would abraham have pushed the knife away at the very last moment, when the intervention he wanted to hear did not come? would he and isaac have climbed down the mountain together, the son's hand in his father's, deciding together that God had been wrong? or would he have needed his own son's dead, bloodied body as proof of that?

you contemplate it as the boy - roger, lyra liked him, she told you about him back in oxford, though for the life of you you cannot remember what - sits shivering next to you on the sledge.  
_where are we going?_ he asks with his small and frightened voice.

up the mountain, you don't answer.

unlike isaac from the story he is not the perfect image of martyrdom and sacrifice. he's just a terrified child.

he's not your son. the unfairnessness of it strikes you, not emotionally but on a rational level. you've given up arguing morals with God a long time ago, frustrated by the lack of answers and yet a part of you lashes out- 

_well, if he's yours, then take him. _  
and nobody does. 

maybe God doesn't have a sense of irony. maybe he's just dead.

you're not asking for permission here and you're not asking for forgiveness. you're not even asking for answers.  
it's not a test, neither is it a scientific experiment, not when it comes down to it, despite all your pretense. at it's most basic, it's you and a child that's not your daughter and four hundred million teravolt of anbaric energy and no one who stops you.  
if God is on the other side of this, he never even stood a chance.

the boy screams for lyra as he dies.

you don't tell her you made this sacrifice for her, because there is no use. either she will understand that by herself or she will not.   
_you en't my father_, she'd been screaming. but you are, and now she knows what that means.

you turn around to the heaven you ripped open and the other side of it is empty and godless and clear.

_i made this_, you think, and someone is talking to you from far away, but you don't understand them. it doesn't matter, this is nothing you could explain or justify.

  
the pure _victory_ of it is running through your veins like fire, redemption is nothing you could attain or desire, and for the first time in your life, your hands (mortal and deadly) reach out to touch another world's sky.


End file.
